The local radio station was complaining about panhandling this morning on the way in. They were moaning about how the people just beg and don’t try to do anything. While I could understand this concern, I got to thinking about what really gets to me.
What’s with the kids in their team jerseys begging for coins at stoplights?
I don’t give them anything, for many reasons.
The cynical side of me is convinced that when nobody is looking they are going to dip into the open topped bucket and pull out a few bucks.
I never give money to beggars. Ever. No exceptions. I don’t care if you will “Work for food”, are “Homeless. Please Help. God Bless.” or need “help going to Nationals”.
I can’t reconcile how you are not able to afford to go to your Softball/Baseball/Cribbage tournament. Your team must have been sponsored by someone. If not the local youth organization (YMCA, B&G Club, etc.) then perhaps some business. Can’t Joe’s Pizza help you out?
I can’t accept that begging for coins at a stop light is the best way to gather funds. Perhaps you can make more money per hour begging, but is it that great for your and your team’s image? Perhaps if your team is the Pensacola Panhandlers or something, but the Boys and Girls Club 10 and under Tigers? Don’t think so.
Do your parents know that you are standing on the corner selling your pride for bits of silver? (does that make me sound too much like an old coot?)
How do your coaches, parents, chaperones, whoever that adult is in the other median trying to look responsible for you, feel about teaching you that begging for handouts is not only acceptable, but a viable means of getting what you want?
I hate to sound old, but I figure if the kids really wanted to go to Nationals they would be willing to work for it. Car wash, Bake sale, whatever. Provide some sort of service and collect donations for your work. Don’t just stand by the stoplight and look sad.
[sub]Cripes! before you know it, I’m gonna start saying things like, “Back in my day…”[/sub]
Am I just a curmudgeon? Or is it truly socially irresponsible of these adults to allow these kids to lower themselves to begging?
Weak rant, I know. Maybe someone else can bolster my arguments and add some choice phraseology.
That’s it? They’re just asking for change? Pitiful. If the kids want to go to the Nationals, they should be holding a bake sale, washing cars, or holding a raffle. Teaching kids to be beggars is a horrible life lesson. The grownups involved should be ashamed.
Sorry, don’t hand out to anyone asking for money for a cause. And I’m a bit skeptical about bakesales, actually. Usually, it’s the moms who do the baking, and the kids reap the profits.
But if a BoyScout, GirlScout, CubScout, Brownie, etc shows up at my door selling something, AND they’re in proper uniform, I’ll empty my pockets. I’ll even break out the checkbook if they can recite the promise/law/oath.
Yesseree…can’t resist it when they’ve got enough pride to SHOW it!
/hijack/
I couldn’t resist when I saw that a local community-college cheerleading squad was having a “topless carwash”. Turns out, they’d wash your entire vehicle whilst wearing their bathing suits, except the roof. Hence, it was TOP-less!
I tossed 'em an extra buck for ingenuity!
/here endeth the hijack/
To some extent, yes. But, considering that they’re high school kids, by baking for the sale, Mom (and Dad, dammit–I bake around here) is saving the money that would have gone for the trip.
Mr. Petrich would have skinned the first idiot to come up with “begging” as a fund raiser idea. He was a big, loud, obscene German who loved us to bits and would make us work harder than we ever thought we could.
And he had the Butter and Cheese speech. If we were slacking, we would get screamed at in the following manner
“who do YOU think You ARE! You may have been one of the best choirs in the nation LAST YEAR, but this year you are acting like WELFARE WHORES just waiting for YOUR BUTTER AND CHEESE to be handed to you. IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY IN THIS ROOM!!!” etc for about five minutes or until he threw furniture.
I miss him so much. (And yes, he did scream at us and throw things. And the chior to a man would have beaten to a pulp the first person who told him to stop. He was the Poppa of our large, dysfunctional family, and Poppa just has a temper. So what?)
What did we do? We sold stuff. Not in uniform (You think the robe custodians would let you borrow your robe to take it outside?) But we sold it anyway.
If you want to raise some money for yourself work for it, or at least give something in return.Have a bake sale, car wash, raffle off a donated item (the donor almost always gets advertising and public relations value from the donation), like the Scouts do . I don’t have any problems with some other groups soliciting donations ( the Salvation Army, the Knights of Columbus,volunteer ambulance corps)because they’re not raising money to spend on their own pleasure,but to provide a service to others.
2)If the kids on the team and their parents can’t afford a trip to Florida for the tournament (and around here,it’s always to Florida for a tournament), then why is the team trying to go? Surely there are local tournaments they can compete in.Or don’t enter tournaments at all. There are such things as leagues which play locally.
3)If its so difficult to finance these events that begging for donations is necessary, why is it that I never see young bowlers or golfers soliciting money in this way.Only baseball,basketball and football players.(In my experience, competitive bowling is more expensive for the under high school crowd than team sports).Do the other sports have better sponsors, or are their parents just more willing to pay their kid’s way?
The main reason I don’t give these kids money is because I need to save it for when my own kids have a team trying to go to Florida, because my kids will not be begging strangers for money.
A busy intersection very close to my house has a magnetic attraction for groups like this, and I must say I have the same reaction as the OP does. It’s dangerous and it’s as annoying as hell; one recent Saturday I made three round trips through the intersection and had to dodge eager beaver Send-Us-To-The-McDonalds-Finals-For-We’re-Not-Even-Telling-You-Whatters each time, most of whom were not happy taking no for an answer. Someone is really going to get hurt one of these days… [No, that isn’t a threat.]
I also share your issue with begging. ANYthing that provides a service is better than this. The local high school crew team is out there from time to time. Okay, I know this is far from a rich school district, lots of kids live below the poverty line, extremely high dropout rate, etcetera, etcetera, but geez, nearly all the kids involved in crew are the middle to upper middle class ones. I know many of them and lots of their parents: the IBM engineer next door, the lawyer three blocks away, the dentist/veterinarian combo whose younger daughter used to be close friends with mine, the psychotherapist who owns the semi-mansion across from church…
These are not needy kids. They are not stupid kids. They are not incapable kids. They can figure out ways of making or earning the money they need to do what they want. (Gee, what a great project that would be, to come up with something sensible!) They do not need to be collecting anybody’s loose change.
I don’t know … I think I’d rather see a kid begging for money than trying to foist upon me some of that reprehensible “World’s Finest” chocolate which seemed to be the garbage of choice for many fund-raisers of my youth.
I’d rather give a donation to the kid selling the World’s Finest and not take the candy (I hate that chocolate)than give to the one just looking for a handout.It just annoys me that the kids, their coaches or teachers and their parents think its acceptable to stand in the street,cause traffic problems,ask people for money and give nothing in return.Of course, what I’d really like is a kid to offer to shovel my snow,rake leaves or mow my lawn in order to earn his/her share of the money, but apparently that’s no longer done.
The kids at the bake sale, at the car wash, selling candy, etc., are just as much begging as the ones standing at the intersections. Seriously, no one ever stops at those car washes because their car is dirty … they wanna donate $5 to a good cause to make themselves feel better. The old ladies buying the fake chocolate bars from their grandsons for $2 don’t really want a candy bar, they just want to (or are “bullied” into) donating $2 into the grandsons’ cause.
Just because they “work” for the money, doesn’t mean they deserve it.
OK, let’s not make gross generalizations here. My husband has frequently gone looking for some group doing a car wash because his car needed it.
And may I add my voice to those that hate begging in intersections?? Allow me to step back to the fall of 1971 - our school choir was invited to participate in a choral festival in Rome. We raised $33K in 10 weeks by having car washes, bake sales, a flea market, a spaghetti dinner, a dance, and we’d go anywhere and sing for a passing of the hat. All this while going to school, too!! And we had to do the selling and such ourselves - not like now when I’m expected to hit up my coworkers with my kid’s fundraisers. Cut my grass, walk my dog, wash my car - I’ll gladly make a donation if you put a little effort into earning it… but if you’re just gonna stand there with your hand out, fergit it!!
Mono raises a valid point about “deserving” money. While I’ll admit that many of the kids providing something for the coin (carwash, candy, wrapping paper, etc.) I don’t feel qualified to if they are truly deserving or not.
I think that all team memebers deserve to go to nationals if they played well enough to earn that spot. However, I don’t know their SES to determine if they should pay their own way or are allowed to participate in the bake sale.
I don’t mind going to a car wash for the local school choir, or whatever. Sure it’s gonna run me 5 bucks or so (and they may not even do a spectacular job), but they are learning that they have to do something for someone to get the “reward”. I would sooner give some kid $1.00 for a candy bar that I’m not going to eat than give ten cents to some kid with a bucket on a street corner. It takes some degree of work for many kids to shlep the box of whatever around the neighborhood, memorize some speech and have the guts to talk to someone they don’t know. When public speaking is such a difficult thing for so many people, the kid who knocks on my door with an order sheet and a pitch has more of my respect than any kid by the stoplight.
I once opened the door to the worlds smallest girl scout. She had on her uniform and had her prepared speech. Her mother was standing about 4 feet away. When I opened the door, I could see the trepidation in her eyes. She looked at her mom, who gently said, “go ahead”. The little girl took a deep breath and started her speech. I didn’t hear a thing she said as I was smiling at her bravery. Six boxes of cookies later, she skipped down my sidewalk and went to the next house. I’d never eat all those cookies, so when they came in I took them to work (except the Thin Mints, they went in the freezer.) The best eight million dollars I ever spent!
